The Pirate Bay is, of course, infamous for being the world's largest BitTorrent tracker with over 630,000 torrents that comprise illegal rips of audio CDs, TV shows and movies, as well as software and video games.

IFPI vs the pirates

The domain name steal is the latest in a long line of skirmishes between The Pirate Bay and IFPI. IFPI had most recently tried - and failed - to secure confidential files from the Swedish police.

When asked to confirm how they got the domain name, Pirate Bay administrator Brokeup told TorrentFreak:

"It's not a hack. Someone just gave us the domain name. We have no idea how they got it, but it's ours and we're keeping it."